"Eh, good evening, see," Nunzio spouted in his Al Capone voice. "Please, please, come closer!" The camera zoomed in way too close, decking Nunzio squarely in the forehead and sending him flying several feet backwards into the dune. There was a muffled but still audible stream of cursing in Italian, as the FBI leader gingerly dug his way out, spitting sand and insults at the cameraman.
"You overfed, simplistic idiot--uh, I mean, too close, a little too close, see!" he quickly salvaged his line, and the camera obediently backed away, allowing Nunzio to pat the turban that Wardrobe had glued on top of his head, before spreading his arms about him in a grand gesture.
"Welcome to AhWWEbah, see, city of big hulking men and one hundred percent saline women, see...and that whole mystery and enchantment crap, see," he announced. "And, oh yeah, me and my boys just put some random people in th' riv'r, see, cause da body floats away, no fuss no muss, see, which means we get to pawn all their valuables." Nunzio took out a Mr. Coffee machine, scowled, and gestured with his hands while huffing, "What is this?! What kind of cheap victims did the Bull and Palumbo whack, anyway?" He quickly threw the coffee maker away, then dug out a set of...Tupperware.
"Eh...this Tupperware is very good, see," he tee-heed nervously. "Holds good fettuccini alfredo without melting, see. Ugh, the lines they give me!"
The camera began to pan to
the right, causing Nunzio's eyes to widen before he struggled to catch
up.
"Wait! Wait! You have to
let me finish my lines!" he whined, causing the camera to stop. Nunzio
darted nervous glances back and forth, before quickly rushing through the
rest of his lines, "There's this lamp, see, and this young man, see, and
this whole diamond in the rough business, see, and I'll just have to tell
you the story whether you like it or not, see, and where's the sand...?"
While he'd been speaking, Nunzio had pulled out a cheap, shoddy-looking
lamp painted a garish gold color, from which he poured an array of sparkling
Pixie Dust and then attempted to throw into the sky.
"Gahck!" Sounds of the cameraman
choking and coughing could be heard, while Nunzio scowled and the screen
hurriedly faded to change scenes.
Since Nunzio forgot to mention it, let's just get this out of the way: Ahem! Ahem! Okay, so, once upon a time, in a land far, faaaaar away (known as AhWWEbah--hey, you try coming up with a better name!), there was a dark man waiting, with a dark purpose, on a dark night, riding a dark horse, and just for the hell of it, he had dark hair and his parrot, despite being a showy shade of red, also looked real dark because of the dark lighting from the dark night sky. Sean O'Haire, the aforementioned dark man, was waiting impatiently in the darkness, stroking his goatee in that evil villainy way while a sulky Chris Jericho, stuffed into a hideous parrot costume that made him look more like Big Bird than Iago, tried to clamber onto O'Haire's shoulder.
At that moment, Eddie Guerrero
came riding toward the pair on his big, brown ass (sorry, couldn't resist
that--I mean donkey!), looking very un-Arabian in his humongous straw sombrero
and fake, bushy black mustache. O'Haire gave Eddie the evil eye, before
grunting in a low, testy voice, "You are late...Sancho Eddie!" Before "Sancho
Eddie" could speak, O'Haire turned to someone behind the cameras--presumably
the directors--and complained, "Really, what kind of Arabian name is Sancho
Eddie? For that matter, what kind of stereotypical portrayal of Latinos
is the adding of "Sancho" to Mr. Guerrero's name--"
"Shut up and go back to
reading your lines, you devil's advocate wannabe!" the grumpy voice of
Vince McMahon could be heard snapping. O'Haire rolled his eyes, muttering
under his breath, "Hey, I'm not telling you anything you don't already
know," while Sancho Eddie apologized half-heartedly, "Well, a thousand
apologies and all that crap, esse!" O'Haire cleared his voice, before resuming
his Jafar persona and growling in his deep, ominous voice, "You have it,
then?" Eddie nodded and reached into a tattered gray pouch by his belt,
starting to dig through its leathery interior while rushing through his
lines, "Sí, of course, I had to sit on a few goats--I mean,
slit a few throats--to get it, homes, and...ah hah! Here it is!" And he
triumphantly pulled out a half-eaten burrito. O'Haire blinked incredulous
eyes at the El Paso native, and Eddie managed a sheepish half-smile as
he mumbled, "Or maybe not," and resumed digging.
"There it is!" A spare sombrero
emerged, only to be tossed aside with a grunt of, "Or maybe not!" Random
odds and ends started flying, including a stolen Rolex, a tattered copy
of El Play-esse, and a guitar painted over with the Mexican flag.
"What a pack rat," O'Haire
grumbled while Eddie was still searching, before finally emerging triumphantly
with one half of a scarab medallion.
"Yes, here it is, esse!"
Eddie shouted excitedly, waving the beetle back and forth. O'Haire reached
out to snatch it, but Eddie promptly drew his hand back while wagging the
wrong finger naggingly at the taller man.
"Ah ah ah," he scolded,
as from behind the cameras Stephanie's distinct voice could be heard screeching,
"That's not an appropriate gesture for a children's movie!" while Stone
Cold's voice hollered drunkenly, "Oh, hell yeah!"
"Oops." Eddie, after finally
realizing his mistake, quickly retracted his hand, before coughing and
mumbling his next line of, "El tesoro, homes! Ur, the treasure,
I mean."
A long, embarrassingly obvious
silence followed, during which both O'Haire and Sancho Eddie waited expectantly,
before the former finally hissed irritatingly, "Jericho, it's your line!"
"I am not squawking!"
an indignant voice sulked, as the cameras panned to a shot of Big Bird
Jericho, squatting rather unattractively on a small piece of lumber hoisted
up to match O'Haire's height so that it looked as though the Canadian were
sitting on his shoulder like a good little parrot ought to be. As O'Haire
tapped his foot impatiently and Eddie drifted into a horribly off-key rendition
of some song about his Llorona, Vince McMahon's voice could be heard yelling
off-camera, "Jericho, play your damn part or else...YOU'RE FIRED!!!" Jericho
sighed, before grumpily squawking shrilly, "AWK!" as he dove off O'Haire's
shoulder to steal the medallion, and promptly wound up bowling Eddie over
right as Mr. Latino Heat was crooning out the chorus.
"Ack! El pajarito
needs to loose weight, no? Getting a little gordito there, esse,"
Eddie piped up in a muffled voice, while Jericho wrestled the medallion
from his hand and snapped humorlessly, "Oh, shut up, you ex-mullet man!"
"Ahem!" O'Haire pointedly
cleared his throat as Jericho dropped the medallion into his outstretched
hand with the obligatory flaps of his wings, trying to direct the attention
back to himself as he raised both halves of the scarab medallion and dramatically
connected them together...and nothing happened. Silence. Crickets chirped.
Eddie resumed singing about his Llorona.
"Awk! Maybe I should go
yell at the technicians!" Jericho shrilled, beginning to flounce off, wing
feathers swaying back and forth. Only then did the dramatic explosion go
off, nearly singing Jericho's bright red, feathery tail right off while
he let out a startled squawk as red and gold pyros shot up all around the
terrified Canadian.
"Awk! Mommy!" Jericho wailed,
while O'Haire tried to save the scene by booming in an overly dramatic
voice, "Quick! Follow the yellow road that will take us to the Wizard of
AhWWEbah!"
O'Haire took off on his stallion,
with Sancho Eddie huffing and puffing behind on his ass (remember, that
means donkey!). Jericho was left coughing in the sand, plucking at the
plumes on top of his head and whining screechingly, "Hey, wait for Big
Bird!" as he hopped off after the two. The Canadian human parrot didn't
have to run for two long, as O'Haire and Eddie skidded abruptly to a halt,
causing him to run face-first into the latter's ass.
"Oh, pee yew," Jericho groaned
to himself, while in front of him O'Haire and Eddie were watching with
melodramatic wonder as a massive black cave in the shape of a lion's head
rose out of the sand. Its mouth opened wide following a roar, and then
all was silent once again.
"At last," O'Haire breathed
melodramatically, "after all my years of searching, it's the--"
"Awk, Cave of Wonders! Awk,
Cave of Wonders! Awk!" Jericho butted in, squawking shrilly while adjusting
his plastic beak, which had crumpled when he'd run into Eddie's ass. O'Haire
glared at the parrot, grumbling, "Shut up and stop stealing my lines, you
limelight hogging chicken, or I'll have you neutered!"
"Awk! Eep! I'll be quiet
now," Jericho squeaked, forcing himself to shut up and amuse himself with
things other than how marvelous his own voice sounded. O'Haire cleared
his throat, then picked up Eddie by his pants and shoved him toward the
cave, shouting after the Latino man, "Now remember, Sancho Eddie, bring
me the lamp! The rest of the treasure is yours, but the lamp is mine! And
remember, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know!"
Eddie tentatively took a
few steps into the cavern, but stopped abruptly when said cavern began
to speak.
"Aw, dude, this isn't cool,"
RVD's laid-back, relaxed voice spoke up from the PA system wired into the
cave, adding, "I mean, everything's cool when you're Rob...Van...Dam! But
you're not Rob...Van...Dam! Dude, just who are you, anyway?" Eddie rolled
his eyes while the Michigan native did his whole thumb-pointing spiel,
then muttered while proudly puffing out his chest, "It is I, Eduardo Guerrero...otherwise
known in this cheap summer flick as Sancho Eddie!"
"Edua-what-what?" the RVD-cavern
tried to pronounce Eddie's name, and wound up hopelessly butchering it.
"Aw, dude, sorry man, but I can't let anybody in here whose name I can't
pronounce!"
"That's racism!" Jericho
squawked shrilly from his perch. "We're gonna sue the pants off you--that
is, if you were wearing, or could ever hope to wear, pants, Mr. Talking
Cave Person!"
"Dude, only the diamonds
are a girl's best friend--urk, I mean, only the diamond in the rough can
enter...and Jericho, I'm not wearing any pants anyway, so chill out," RVD
reminded him cheerfully, veering away from his few lines in the script.
Jericho got a weird look on his face, like he'd just bitten into a pair
of dirty old gym socks stuffed with Victoria's special spicy black pepper
enchilada sauce, then shuddered and grumbled to himself, "Eh, don't want
to get that mental picture! Awk!"
Eddie, meanwhile, had turned
to look questioningly in O'Haire's direction, who scowled and nagged, "What
are you waiting for? Go on--and remember, I'm not telling you anything
you don't already know!" Eddie shrugged, then decided he might as well
step inside to get the other man to shut up and stop spouting his one and
only catchphrase. Reluctantly, he took an additional step into the RVD-cavern...and
nothing happened. A dramatic silence followed, during which Eddie heaved
a sigh of relief...and then RVD's voice could be heard hollering at a frightfully
loud volume, "YEOWCH! MY BUTT!" while Stephanie's voice off-camera gloated
knowingly, "See, told you it's the only way to get Mr. Calm, Cool, and
Collected to roar out like that!" Meanwhile, the lion's head cavern had
begun to explode and collapse, with Eddie inside wailing and screeching
without the incentive of being pricked in the butt like RVD had, but the
lion's mouth snapped shut before he could get out, and the entire cavern
collapsed.
"Ow, it's starting to turn
purple, dude..." RVD's voice whined about his bruised behind, then added
carelessly, "Oh, yeah, and seek out this Diamond Dave--uh, I mean, diamond
in the rough!"
The first few lights of dawn
began to appear, turning the dark desert into a pale shade of gray as Jericho
dug himself out from the sand, spitting feathers and yanking at the tail
of his costume to adjust it. The blonde Canadian caught his reflection
in a conveniently nearby oasis lake, and nearly had a heart attack when
he saw how disheveled he looked.
"Awk! I look like a mess!"
Jericho croaked. "Worse than Sable before her weekly Botox shots!" Turning
around, he cupped his hands around the plastic beak hanging over his mouth
and hollered, "Wardrobe! Makeup!" A disoriented O'Haire, meanwhile, was
babbling mindlessly to a stoic palm tree, "Patience, Jericho, patience...Sancho
Eddie was obviously not worthy...by the way, don't you think the Cave of
Wonders sounded rather stoned?...hmm, you know, Eddie was right, you do
seem to be gaining weight there, Jericho--I mean, look at your torso, it's
so thick and flabby...say, did you know your skin's drying up pretty badly
there?...and your hair, yikes, it looks worse than Cher's on a bad hair
day...why is it green, anyway?...oh, and just remember: I'm not telling
you anything you don't already know..."
From off-camera, Vince McMahon's
angry voice boomed through a bullhorn, "Stick to the script! Read your
lines! Do your job! YOU'RE FIRED...if you don't start acting immediately!"
The two wrestlers turned "actors" ignored their angry director/boss, as
Jericho happily settled back to get dolled up by the wardrobe and makeup
departments supervised by Rico, while the disoriented O'Haire continued
to spout out his lines to the palm tree.
"Yes, yes," O'Haire was
saying, "we must find this Jack of Diamonds--I mean, diamond in the rough!"
*Coming up next: Aladdin makes his grand entrance! Plus, the debut of Spanky, fresh off his furball medicine intake and his flea shots administered to the butt, as Abu the monkey! Plus, the three palace guards, Nathan Jones, Charlie Haas, and Shelton Benjamin (get it? Kurt Angle's the sultan, and Haas and Benjamin are Team Angle?), land in a pile of Skittle Jeff's Discount Body Paint!*
